Boycotts are an effective means for achieving
social change. The Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott was a key point
in the struggle for civil rights. Southern Baptists are boycotting
the Walt Disney Company to protest the company's moves away from
family-friendly entertainment.

The National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) has made headlines for its high-profile
boycotts of South Carolina for flying the Confederate Battle Flag
atop the state's capitol dome and most recently the Adam's Mark
hotel chain for alleged discriminatory practices. I'd like to
suggest a new boycott: Blacks and Americans of all races should
boycott the NAACP itself!

Pay the NAACP no money. Pay it no mind.
The NAACP is no longer deserving enough to receive our hard-earned
cash and precious time.

I don't want to disparage the valuable
and integral role the NAACP played in winning our civil rights.
Members of the NAACP risked their lives for the right to vote
and our right to come and go in public as we please. We take these
freedoms for granted today, but there are those still among us
who can remember the brutal and shameful days of segregation and
Jim Crow. I will always be grateful for the NAACP of yesterday
for my liberty today.

Nowadays, the NAACP's caliber of work
pales in comparison. America's increasing equality and opportunity
relegates the NAACP to complaining that there are no black characters
on the television show "Friends." If they consider that
and fighting the anachronism of the Confederate Battle Flag as
the top civil rights issues of our time, it's proof we blacks
have come a long way.

The NAACP's recent actions show it has
sold out the original intent of the organization, which was to
help blacks succeed in society. In recent years, it has become
nothing more than a tool of the elite, socialist wing of the Democratic
Party. We certainly saw that in its preferential treatment of
Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Ask yourself, what is the NAACP doing
about the real problems in the black community? What is it doing
about our schools, where our kids know more about condoms than
mathematics? What is the NAACP doing about the 70% of black babies
being born out of wedlock? The NAACP has health and education
programming, but the group's leaders spend more time in the media
spotlight focusing on the trivial rather than addressing the true
needs of black America. In fact, I believe the true intent of
the NAACP leadership is to cause problems by dividing America
and by irritating resentments in the black community.

The NAACP's recent national convention
is a prime example of its leadership divisiveness. Leaders of
this supposedly non-partisan organization spouted partisan rhetoric.
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said some of President George W. Bush's
nominations were from the "Taliban wing of American politics,"
likening them to the radical governing party of Afghanistan. He
also said Attorney General John Ashcroft and Interior Secretary
Gale Norton were "nearly canine" in their devotion to
the long-dead Confederacy. Attendees reportedly laughed and clapped
when a speaker said she'd been anxiously waiting for Republican
Senator Strom Thurmond to die. House Majority Leader Dick Armey
met with NAACP President Kweisi Mfume earlier this year to try
to smooth relations between the group and the Republicans. It
appears that Mfume has chosen to disregard the Republican overtures.
The NAACP is welcome to disagree with either - or both - political
parties, but there is no excuse for vicious name-calling.

Mfume deserves credit for rescuing the
NAACP from financial ruin and rescuing the group's reputation
from the harm done by his predecessor. He put the group on solid
ground, but he must now be held responsible for once again taking
it into dangerous waters. The partisanship exerted over the past
year could threaten the NAACP's tax status, and the battles being
chosen threaten its relevance.

At the convention, Mfume signed a new
contract that extends his tenure as president of the NAACP. This
means we can probably expect more of the same unless we blacks
act. Taking a page from their playbook, I propose blacks and Americans
of all races everywhere join me in cutting our ties with the NAACP.
Call them and ask who they serve, the liberal establishment or
black America. Withdraw your financial and moral support, and
tell others to do the same. We'll be back when the organization
once again represents all quarters of the diverse black community.

###

(Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson is a member
of the national advisory council of the African-American leadership
network Project 21 and the founder and president of the Brotherhood
Organization of a New Destiny. Comments may be sent to [email protected].)

Note: New Visions Commentaries
reflect the views of their author, and not necessarily those of
Project 21.